Thursday, October 11, 2018

I've been turning it over quite a bit. It's probably true that life moves you on along your side of the river. But it's equally true that it's nice to have friends, someone to wave to across the rushing water. Knowing that there is activity and settlement on the other bank.

It's lonely without friends. It's lonely without any beautiful kites in the sky that you can at least look at when you need to let your spirit soar a bit. When you need to dip and glide like a bird and have a moment of freedom and just a moment when you imagine a life lived above the river where it isn't the formidable boundary that it is today.

So build a new kite. Put it up into the air. Let its bright colors, its shimmering vibrancy ascend. Make it special, make it yours, a kite that is about you, a kite that shows the best of you, the you of you. A kite that shows where you stand on the ground, and, as such, inspires those both near and far, reaches out to touch the hearts of friend and stranger, and even those in-between. And those on more than one path so that they have the guide of kindness, compassion, loyalty, affection and true intention to accompany them on their journey.

Friday, August 31, 2018

Therapy, and more therapy, has been a dominant theme of this summer. Sudden, traumatic events and then the long unfolding of coping and adjusting, coming to terms with self and others.

All of life is this constant negotiation, this silver stream of awareness and adjustment, a peering forward and a turning back to see the landscape one has travelled.

Event past, times long ago, lie like a beautiful village on the other side of a rushing river. The cottage is there, the place you once inhabited with its charming shutters and honeysuckle bowers, the periwinkle roses that grow near the door. A lovely place that cottage. And the people who lived there, you cared for, you thought of as friends. you think of as friends.

Those lovely people, bright, strong, handsome as they continue on about their own lives. On their side of the riverbank, near the cottage where you used to dwell, the place where you rested a while on your travels.

You can glimpse the people, that life. But it is gone to you now. The river is wide, and deep, and fast, and it carries you on to your life on this side. Is there any way to cross that river, to revisit that previous time? If the people are occupied in their daily tasks, and the river is a barrier, if life has moved forward and time has carried on, is there any hope, reason, purpose, good to come of building a bridge, of finding a boat, of sailing a kite to the other shore?

I have no answers for this. I suspect that the river once crossed is not meant to be recrossed. But these are the images that come to my mind today, as I think of the lives of those who have played a role in my life.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

I've spent the last years writing less and working more. Caring for family members. Dealt with the horrors of Alzheimer's. Very many caregiving duties. Moved my parents out of their home of 40 years, and took another entire year to sell and clear out all of its excessive contents. Had to sell the house. Lost my Dad. Grieving. And pulling things together at all sorts of levels for Mom.

Watched my children grow into teens and adults. Watched them struggle in school. Watched school not help. Transitioned the oldest very successfully into a very good college that she loves. Missed her being in her childhood and our home.

Working my hardest to help the younger one do the same. She's a different person, so very different needs, currently involving much patience and therapy at exorbitant cost financially, emotionally, and chronologically.

Keeping it together. Enjoying the blessings. Still have a stable, loving family despite all of the stresses and stressors. Working more than ever and hoping to work even more when B leaves home.

Trying to remember or rediscover who I am, what I like, what I do, and how I help the world

The world needs help, and people need kindness. I try to live that in my days the best I can.

That's me. That's where my blog went. And where my time and energy went. And what I'm doing.
Maybe I'll come back here. Or come forward here and move ahead.

Try not to get swept away by excessive heat - either from climate changes or from world events or from personal struggles.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

We are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. . . .

Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth At daybreak know a pleasure not less real Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. . . .

Is the light vanished from our golden sun, Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair, That we are nature’s heritors, and one With every pulse of life that beats the air? Rather new suns across the sky shall pass, New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar, Critics of nature, but the joyous sea Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be Part of the mighty universal whole, And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!

We shall be notes in that great Symphony Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!

Inspiration:

Everything is okay. Everything is just as it needs to be. Breathing deeply, feel NOW settle calmly around you. Exhaling softly, let go of frustrations or attachments.

Feel the deep beauty of this moment. The future will also be a beautiful place. Maybe even more beautiful than today-- more full, more loving, more secure, more contented. More you.

Because, really, everything is okay.

Words have power; actions, too.Your choices will come back to you.Live as you will; act as you must,In perfect love and perfect trust.

If do no harm will be your guide,Keep faith and wisdom at your side.The answers that you seek are foundIn sacred space and holy groundWhere two worlds meet, and then give birthTo fire, water, wind, and earth.